hola

Greetings from Mexico! I´m sitting at a comfortable 75-80 degrees during the day, with cool nights. I haven´t seen a cloud since I got here Saturday afternoon. The house I´m staying is pretty much a freaking mansion. So far I´ve counted 4 full bathrooms, 5 televisions (flatscreen, of course) and all the conveniences of any upper class American home, except for a dissapointing lack of hot water for a morning shower. The maid comes every day, and she folds and organizes all of Erin and my crap, so life isn´t bad at all. And the family has a ton of animals, including a cat (misi) and three parakeets that our madre described as `pornographico' Even if you don´t speak any Spanish, I think you get the drift. Seriously, they do each other during every meal.

Speaking excusively in Spanish is probably the most frustrating thing I´ve ever had to do. I realized pretty fast that the vocab you learn in american classes is not necessarily what you need to know how to say on the streets of Guanajuato. For example, the fact that I can name all of my school supplies and class subjects does me jack squat if I´m trying to tell a taxi driver how to get to my house. It´s really tempting to slip back into English when the group is hanging out, but for the most part I try to stay in spanish. Plus, switching back and forth all the time gets really confusing, and exhausting.

The city is an old colonial town, and actually has special rules against types of modernization (stoplights, etc.) because it´s a fairly hot spot for tourists. It´s also very hilly, which hopefully will be a benefit for the size of my thighs when I get back. Most everything is in el centro, so basically you just walk around downtown all day and look at shops and stuff. When went out for the first time, we ended up dancing with a group of students from George Mason University that are here doing essentially the same thing as us. Like I said, there are a lot of americans here. We took a salsa dancing class at the Univeristy, and all I have to say is, salsa dancing with your post-middle aged sweaty professor is more awkward than you could ever imagine. But alas, there is a shortage of men in our group so I took what I was given. and yesterday we went back in the afternoon for a 2-hour more advanced session. There were a lot of mexican muchachos (boys) there, and afterward we all went out for drinks. They are without a doubt the most flirtatious people I have ever met in my life. They didn´t understand why when I said I had a boyfriend, that meant I only had one. Hay, caramba.

Probably the most interesting cultural difference is that the days last FOREVER. With the exception of our 2-hour morning language class, most everything is at a general time. And since we get up around 7 and don´t go to bed until 11 or later, the days seem to take longer than usual to end. It´s not necessarily a bad thing, but I have a feeling it´s going to get exhausting by the end of three weeks.